OUR HISTORY
Pepper Edmiston founded Happy Trails for Kids in 1993 in honor of her son David, who was epileptic and mentally disabled. For 15 years, hundreds of disabled children and their families had the opportunity to spend holidays at dude ranches throughout California, at no cost to the families.
In 2008, Pepper’s daughter, Susan Abrams, became involved with Happy Trails. Susan, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Law School, had extensive professional experience working with children in the California foster care system. Because of the disproportionately high number of children with disabilities in the foster care system, Happy Trails began to organize a number of dude ranching adventures for disabled children and their foster families.
In 2009, Susan took over as Happy Trails’ President and has focused the organization on the often overlooked foster care population. In addition to the ranching program, Happy Trails has expanded to offer a summer camp program for children in foster care, as well as year-round reunion events. Susan has brought with her a team of compassionate, energetic leaders who are eager to expand and enhance the organization.
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